Refreshing its pint-sized tablet for the first time in two years, Apple has announced the first iPad Mini with an OLED screen.
Wielding the A20 Pro chipset also used by the iPhone 18 Pro range, Apple’s latest tablet is also more powerful and thinner than its predecessor. Apple claims the A20 Pro iPad Mini produces up to 2.7 times faster graphics performance, and up to 1.6 times faster CPU performance than the previous tablet.
Replacing the 2024 iPad Mini’s backlit LED screen, the 2026 model’s OLED display is also slightly bigger, at 8.5 inches compared to 8.3 inches. OLED technology uses self-lit pixels instead of a backlight, which means more precise light control and contrast.
Alongside the new display technology, Apple trimmed down the iPad Mini’s overall size. This year’s tablet is 5.4mm thick, shaving nearly an entire millimetre off the 2024 tablet’s 6.3mm thickness. Apple’s new tablet bears an IP67 rating, the first time an iPad Mini advertises water and dust resistance.
Apple also responded to calls to shift the front-facing 12MP camera’s position. Rather than sitting at the top of the screen when in portrait mode, the camera is now landscape-aligned, a more natural position for FaceTime calls.
Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread connectivity are all supported on the OLED iPad Mini, courtesy of Apple’s N1 networking chip. Apple also claims that the chip improves AirDrop and AirPlay performance. Cellular versions of the tablet benefit from up to 50 per cent faster mobile data speeds, Apple claims, than the 2024 iPad Mini, due to the company’s C2 modem.
2026 OLED iPad Mini price
Prices start at $1,099 for the new 128GB Wi-Fi iPad Mini in Australia, a $300 and 37 per cent price increase compared to the 2024 model’s launch pricing. It’s a much bigger jump than the $50 increase between the 2021 and 2024 iPad Minis, another example of consumer technology getting more expensive amidst the global memory shortage.
Meanwhile, the cellular-compatible variant starts at $1,349 locally. For an additional $200, models with 256GB of storage and above can also be fitted with Apple’s “Nano-texture glass”, a glare-reducing coating previously exclusive to the iPad Pro range.
Here’s how much each storage configuration costs with the default screen coating:
- Wi-Fi 128GB: $1,099
- Wi-Fi 256GB: $1,299
- Wi-Fi 512GB: $1,649
- Wi-Fi + Cellular 128GB: $1,349
- Wi-Fi + Cellular 256GB: $1,549
- Wi-Fi + Cellular 512GB: $1,899
Pre-orders for the OLED iPad Mini begin on 29 October, with launch scheduled for 6 November.
Apple’s announcement confirms earlier reports about a new tablet coinciding with a yet-to-be-announced touchscreen MacBook Pro, the latter of which is expected at an event on Thursday.
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